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content to the State Resources page in the Left Navigation
column Check it Out
There is much information
on this website for grandparents raising grandchildren or
other relatives parenting someone else's child.
You will find personal
comments and stories from grandparents themselves.
You will find information
from the various states and Canada.
There is a link above to
Karen's personal Blog for grandparents as well as to Karen's
Healthy Living Blog. Check out both of them.
We have a questionnaire
to answer with a place to leave comments.
We love to read your
comments.
Please take the time to
read the information provided in this site. You may find
just what you need. You will most definitely find that you
are not alone in your quest of raising and parenting grandchildren.
And please, return often
as we post new information as we receive it.
I'm sleepy. I
think I'll take a nap right here.
When grandparents or other relatives raise and parent children, it
is for various reasons. Other relatives raising children are
often called Kinship Caregivers. I prefer the term Kinship
Parents. When grandparents or other relatives become the
full-time parent, it may be because there was the
death of a parent or a parent is away in the military; this
is happening more than we like right now with devastating
effects. It
may simply be because a child was having problems with
his/her social environment and needed a change, but
more often than not, there is a correlation between alcohol
and drug abuse and neglect on the part of the parents. The parent/s may be mentally
ill, incarcerated, or simply and unfortunately incapable of
caring for their children.
According to the U.S. 2010
Census, there were more than 2.7 million households with
grandparents raising their grandchildren. This is an increase from the 2000 Census.
Plus, the figure does
not even count other relatives acting as parents such as people raising
their brother or sister's children or, even yet, raising
their niece or nephew's children. Over sixty percent of
grandparents raising their grandchildren are still in the
work force. This is also up from 2000, and 16.3% are living below the poverty level.
As grandparents
or other relative (kinship) parents, we may
have had no mental, emotional, or financial preparation when
we began raising these children. It can be daunting. Everything, from needing diapers and formula,
an appropriate car seat for the toddler, furniture such as cribs or kids bunk beds, to dealing with an
ill child with health and medical concerns, may need to be immediately
addressed.
This
website is designed to help guide grandparents and other
relatives (kinship
parents) in their efforts to raise, parent, and educate these children and to
find needed resources for the children as well as themselves.
Some grandparents are
dealing with children who have come to them with severe
mental health issues, while other grandparents are raising
children with physical disabilities needing the use of wheelchairs and medical supplies. Whether the children's medical needs
are of a mental health nature or physical disabilities,
grandparents can be in desperate need of financial support
and medical resources.
As you browse through our Grandparents
Raising Grandchildren website, you will read stories and
comments from other grandparents raising grandchildren. Some
grandparents are raising the children informally with no
legal protection, while others have legally adopted their
grandchildren.
You
will also find information
and Internet links to helpful information about parenting, child development, financial assistance that may be available to
grandparents and relatives parenting children, information
on legal issues, and mental health disorders in
children.
You will also find information about
dealing with stress, and the newest page of our website
is about Healthy Living and Wellness. As grandparents age,
raising children can sometimes be challenging. Taking care
of ourselves, mentally, physically, and spiritually is vital
to our over-all health and our ability to live prosperous
lives and raise healthy grandchildren. We will cover areas about bringing fitness into the lives of both grandparents as well as grandhcildren. Creative ideas using homemade exercise equipment can bring an element of fun to physical activities that help both the grandparents and children with existing medical conditions or
in preventing unnecessary health problems in the first place. Our goal is to provide
information to help you achieve your goals.
Please feel free to email Karen with any
suggestions or questions. We enjoy communicating with other
grandparents and receiving your input on our website.
Can I bring her home with me? She can share my room.
More than six
million children - approximately 1 in 12 - are
living in households headed by grandparents (4.5
million children) or other relatives (1.5
million children). More
Public benefits
available to grandparents and other relatives
and the children they raise vary from state to
state. Benefits that may be available include:
Grandparents raising and parenting
grandchildren, managing stress in parenting, relative and kinship parenting, grandparents as parents,
grandparents as foster parents, grandparents adopting grandchildren, parenting
special needs children, stress management, the effects of stress, depression
in children, ADD, attention deficit in children, RAD, Reactive Attachment
Disorder, mental health and children, conduct disorder in children, Medicaid for
children, Child Daycare, Grandparent Rights, Grandparents with legal custody,
guardianship of grandchildren,
holistic health and wellness, Karen Best Wright, Karen Wright
